“Now, I’ve come here because I need some help bringing the place back to life for a fundraiser, so I can help put people’s lives back to together.” I couldn’t bring myself to even think about how he and everyone else in the town had obviously thought I was there to take them for more money and that I’d killed Paul. I had to get this fundraiser moving. “From what I hear, you’re the man to see about cleaning up a lake and possibly getting some sod. My problem is that I don’t have any money.”
“Why should I help you when I don’t trust you?” He slowly brought his hat back up to his head and placed it on.
“Mr. Deters,” It appeared I had to go into much greater detail than I’d already done. “ I had no idea my ex-husband was swindling people out of their retirement and livelihood. He got me too. I’m here on good faith to make the campground a better place for not only the residents who call it home, but for those who want to come to Normal as tourists like they used to. From what I’d gathered on the brochure, Normal was a big spot for antiquing and campers during the festivals.”
I stood there begging my case because he was the only person in town that could help me fix the lake and stock it, not to mention the sod. Betts quickly dismissed herself. It must be nice being a preacher’s wife and having God as a good excuse to leave, while I was there stuck in the fire of you know where.
“I don’t know. You come in here and don’t have a dime, asking for credit. From what I remember, your husband,” he started to say.
“Ex,” I corrected him.
“Your ex-husband came into the diner down there and tried to sell us the same song and dance you’re selling. I’m gonna fix up the campground, he said. I’m gonna bring back your retirement, just give me what you’ve got and I’ll turn this town back around. Do you know them Randal boys have nothing?” He glared at me.
“Randal boys?” The image of the Randal man I met with his shirt off was still vivid in my mind.
“Yeah. Ty lives in the campground raising his brothers because his mama died of cancer and when your ex-husband,” Alvin was good at exaggerating ex-husband, “had taken their poor old daddy for all his money, he went into a heart attack and damn near died. He’s all laid up in the county nursing home trying to learn to feed himself again. Now Ty had to move back to Normal from his big city life to come here and keep the diner open and raise his brothers.”
“I didn’t know that.” My mouth dried because any saliva found its way into my tear ducts. I bit back the urge to cry. “Paul did some very bad things, but I’m not going to do that.”
“You’re more than welcome to go to the bank and see if they’ll give you credit to come back in here and purchase what you need. As for giving you anything until you can pay me back from some funds of the fundraiser, I just can’t do that.” His eyes bore into me.
“I don’t blame you.” I nodded and realized this was going to take a lot more than batting eyes for the citizens of Normal to forgive me. “I’ll go to the bank. Can you tell me where that diner is?”
“Across the street and a few doors down.” He crossed his arms over his chest. The tense jaw never relaxed.
“Thank you for your time,” I said softly and excused myself from the store.
EIGHT
I clearly hadn’t gotten anywhere with either shop and it appeared to me that no one was going to give Paul West’s ex-wife an opportunity to make good. There was going to have to be a way to get through to these people, only I didn’t know what that was. Maybe being at the library with Abby would distance myself from my thoughts and something would pop into my head.
The library was a typical library. The reference desk was in the middle of the big open room and surrounded by large bookshelves that were labeled with the genre of the section of books. There was a children’s section in the rear. Their small voices and giggles were the only sound in the quiet building.
I found Abby pushing a cart with books stacked a mile high in the non-fiction section.
“I hear you’re making quite a stir around here,” she said.
“I guess I’m going to have to figure something else out on how to get the campground back in shape.” I scanned down the books.
“You just keep on being who you are and they’ll come around. It might take longer than you anticipated to sell the place.” She smiled. “But mark my words, everyone will help out when they see that you are doing the right thing. Me and all the girls know you are.”
“Thank you, but I don’t want to think about that right now.” I put my hand on the cart. “I’m here to work.”
“Have you ever worked in a library?” she asked.
Worked? I wanted to laugh, but her face was so serious that I kept the fact that I’d maybe even used a library a handful of times and that was my high school library.
“No. But I do know how to put books back and these look like they need to go back.” It was a perfect start for me.
“Great.” She checked her watch. “It gives me free time to get story time together.”
“That’s so cute.” I glanced back at the children’s section. “I heard them when I walked in.”
“Unfortunately, we have the children’s section in the back because they like to run away and they usually can’t make it to the door before we can grab them.” She gave a half smile. “Anyways, just let me know if you need anything.”
“I will. Thanks, Abby for giving me this chance.” I wanted to make sure that I thanked her.
“It’s nothing.” She brushed it off. “I pulled you some reference books for RV owners and I put them on the counter so you wouldn’t forget.”
“Thank you. You know, I get why people are skeptical of me, but like you said, I’m going to show them differently.” I put my other hand on the cart and pushed it down the aisle she was working in before I’d gotten there.
Abby hurried off and left me to figure it out, though she thought I knew what I was doing. How hard could it be?
After comparing the numbers and the letters, it wasn’t as tough as it looked. I was happy to get the first stack of books put away and got a little sidetracked when I got to the travel section and found a book on Normal.
There were all sorts of photos of Happy Trails in its heyday and the lake. I couldn’t help but wonder if it looked like this when Paul won it in college. He was much older than me and if did the math, say he was twenty-one when he won the bet, he was sixty-one now. That’d been forty-years ago. I remember Alvin Deters’s saying he was in his fifties and wondered if he’d remembered what it looked like. Maybe I could go back and see him and approach him that way. Really get to know him instead of just asking for credit.
“Are you almost done?” Abby pepped around the corner of the travel bookshelf. “Oh, you’ve not finished but one shelf? It’s been an hour.”
“It has?” My jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry. I picked up this book on Normal and just got lost into it.”
I’d heard many times from people how they could get lost in a library for hours. I never understood that until this moment.
“Well, just leave it. You can finish after story hour.” She held out a book and a bag.
“Story hour?” I looked between her and the bag.
“Yeah, it’s fun. I thought you’d enjoy that.” Abby was wrong. By far wrong.
“Kids don’t really like me.” I shrugged.
“Three-fourths of Normal don’t like you either, but you’re still here.” She joked. “Here. You’ll be fine. Just read the book. The craft is a color page today so that’s easy.”
“Craft? Easy? Trust me when I say that I can screw up a color page.” I waved my hands in front of me.
“You’ll be fine.” She jammed the bag in my hand and then the book. “Take it as a lesson. If you can handle the children in Normal, you can handle their parents when you start working on that fundraiser.”
She didn’t leave any room for me to protest as she walked away.
Story time felt like it went longer than thirty minutes. I’d been told several times by the kids that they couldn’t see the pictures as I read, so I quickly learned to hold the book out in front of me and try to read sideways. Then someone said that all the characters sounded the same, so I changed my voice a few times and they laughed, so I kept changing my voice with different characters.